The Secrets We Keep
by heavenlyshadows
Summary: Peter's hiding something. When Harley finds out and agrees to help him, he thinks it's all worked out for the better. But when a mission turns deadly, how far is he willing to go to keep his brothers secret?


Peter was acting weird. It wasn't his usual hyperactive, constantly bouncing off the walls kind of weird. It was the kind that, though Harley would never admit it, had him worried. The kind that had his little brother retreating to the corners of their dad's workshop when he was under their parent's watchful eyes and sneaking out of the house when he wasn't.

At first, Harley thought it was grief. It had been less than a year since Ben died, since Peter had _watched _him die, and you didn't witness something like that and walk away unscathed. But as the months dragged on and Peter got more and more secretive, Harley assumed the worst. His thoughts about all the awful things his brother could have gotten himself only got worse when Happy dropped them off at school one morning and a vial fell out of Peter's backpack. It was made of plastic, probably taken out of one of the school's science labs, and couldn't have been bigger than Harley's index finger. It was filled with a substance he had never seen before.

"Oh my God," he whispered. It wasn't the first time drugs had crossed Harley's mind but never in a million years would he have thought that he was right. Peter was a good kid. He had barely ever gotten detention. How had it gotten this bad? A million questions ran through his mind as he sat in Peter's desk chair later that night, twirling the vial between his fingers. He had been sitting there for almost an hour when Peter walked through the door, and his brother jumped almost ten feet in the air when he saw him.

"What are you doing here?" Peter asked his voice hard. "You're trespassing." Harley snorted. "You can't trespass in your own house."

"You can if you don't need to be in the area of the house that you're in."

"I do need to be here," he said. "Care to tell me about this?"

He held out the vial and Peter's eyes widened for a fraction of a second before turning stony. "Where did you get that?"

"It fell out of your backpack at school this morning." Harley snapped. "What is it?"

"None of your business."

"It is my business if my little brother's doing drugs." Harley stood from the chair and jabbed his finger into Peter's chest, lowering his voice only when he realized he was in danger of waking up his parents. "Fuck you," Peter hissed. "You don't know anything."

"I know that you sneak out of the house every night. I know that you hacked FRIDAY so that she wouldn't tell Mom and Dad and I know that all these field trips and decathlon practices you go on are bullshit. So you need to tell me what the hell this is and what you're doing with it. Now." Peter said nothing. "Fine," Harley huffed. "If you won't tell me, maybe you'll tell mom and dad."

"No!" Peter bolted to the door, blocking Harley's way out. "You cannot tell them."

Harley raised his eyebrows, waving the vial expectantly.

Peter sighed. "Do you remember that field trip we took to Oscorp last year?"

"The one that landed you in bed with the flu for a week? Yeah, I remember."

"Well, I may not have told you guys about everything that happened after that."

Harley's eyes widened to the size of planets. "What are you talking about?"

Peter stepped away from the door and peeled off his hoodie, taking his T-shirt with it. Harley was about to stop him but he paused. Peter had abs. His scrawny, non-athletic little brother had a literal eight pack and biceps to match. "What the fuck?"

"I know. And there's more." He backed up a few steps then pointed to the hydro flask on his nightstand. "Throw that to me."

Harley quirked his eyebrows again. Peter couldn't catch for shit. Then again he had seen weirder things today. He picked up the bottle and chucked as hard as he could in Peter's direction, cringing when it flew higher than he had meant it to. He hunched his shoulders, waiting for the sound of Peter's bedroom window shattering to wake up the whole house. It never did. Peter had caught it and as if that wasn't incredible enough, when Harley opened his eyes, his brother was gone. He could hear him laughing somewhere in the room but couldn't see him. "What the f- '' Harley broke off as a torrent of water splashed over his head, soaking him instantly.

Peter was on the ceiling, his feet pressed flat against the tile with the overturned hydro flask in his hand. For the first time in his life, Harley was speechless. Peter sobered and flipped off the ceiling to stand in front of him, concerned.

"Are you ok?"

Harley blinked once, twice.

"Y-yeah it's just not what I was expecting."

Disappointment flashed across his brother's face and he fumbled to correct himself. "Its-Its cool I just- it's a lot to process. I was only prepared to lecture you about drugs." Peter snorted. "There's something else I want to show you." He reached over to pull an old pocket knife Tony had given him years ago out of his nightstand drawer, opening it with a sharp click. Harley's heart leaped into his throat when he pressed it to the skin of his palm.

"What the hell are you doing?" he cried, trying to yank the knife from his brother's grasp. Peter deftly kept it away. "It's ok, I promise." Harley hesitated but let Peter go, watching as he cut a line across his palm, a thick stream of blood appearing on the surface of his skin. In a matter of seconds, it started to knit itself back together.

"What the fuck?"

Peter snorted again and wiped his hand on his jeans. When he held it back up a thin red line over his palm was the only evidence the cut had ever been there at all. "I know. It's crazy."

Harley paced, trying to calm himself down. Instead, he kicked over Peter's backpack, sending what looked like bracelets and a pair of sweats tumbling to the floor. Sweats that Harley would recognize anywhere.

"Oh my god." he gasped. "You're Spiderman. The guy from Youtube." Peter, who looked as shell shocked as Harley felt only nodded. "Dads going to kill you." Peter nodded again. "And you've been doing this for what? Six months now?"

"Yeah, since Ben died."

They say that when something bad happens, it's so traumatic that your brain remembers exactly where you were and what you were doing when you found out for the rest of your life. Harley didn't think he could forget that night if he tried. It had been one of May and Ben's days with Peter, part of the custody agreement they made with Tony after Peter's mother died, and Peter had texted that he and Ben were on their way over an hour before. Tony had tried to play it off like he wasn't worried but his relentless fidgeting gave him away. The Parkers apartment was only 20 minutes away from the tower. He should have been back by now. What if something had happened? What if he was hurt? Or worse?

They both jumped when Tony's phone rang.

"Peter?"

Harley knew it was bad when not even a minute into the conversation Tony's entire body went rigid. "Ok. Ok yes, thank you. We'll be there right away." his voice was clipped as he hung up the phone, flew from the couch and turned to Harley, his face wild with panic.

"Call Happy and tell him we need to get to Beth Israel Medical Center now." He didn't leave any room for argument. "Pepper!"

"What happened?" Tony was already halfway up the stairs, Harleys question falling on deaf ears.

"Dad?"

Tony didn't stop when he reached the top of the stairs, running for Peppers office at lightning speed, and though Harley wasn't the one being spoken to, he could hear every word.

"Peter was involved in a shooting in Queens."

Finding out that his brother had a gun pointed at him wasn't the worst part. The worst part was seeing Peter in the hospital, covered in blood and when Harley reached out to touch him, he flinched away. It was the first time in his life he had ever wanted to hurt someone. He felt it raging under his skin every time Peter woke up screaming from a nightmare or after he went back to school and had reeled away from their classmates' condolences and well wishes, guilt on his face. What happened to Ben wasn't Peters to feel guilty about.

It dawned on Harley now that maybe that was why he had become Spider-man in the first place. If Peter couldn't save his uncle, maybe he could save everyone else. Maybe, with his powers, he could stop there from being more Bens and more Peters. He already had. In the months since Spider-Man had appeared, local crime had dropped significantly, enough to put him on the Avengers radar.

Enough for Tony and Nick Fury to have argued about making him a part of the team the week before.

"I just want to talk to him Stark," Harley heard Nick explain from his hiding place on the stairs. "See what he's about."

"I hear you. All I'm saying is there's a reason he's been dodging us."

That must have surprised Fury because, where Harley could hear him pacing before, now there was silence. "You think it's an act?"

"Maybe not now but come on," Tony said. "even Wade Wilson was willing to talk to us and he's about as far in the moral gray area as you can get. Either there's something in his past he doesn't want us to find or he's trying to avoid the Accords."

"Or he's protecting someone." Fury offered. "Isn't that why you keep your boys away from the press?" Harley sucked in a breath, the tension in the room so thick you could cut it with a knife. His dad had made it clear from the beginning that he never wanted Harley and Peter to have anything to do with his fame, from Iron Man or otherwise. They attended Midtown under different last names and were rarely seen in public with Tony or Pepper. Even the team, save Natasha, hadn't known about them until a few years ago. Fury knew he was crossing a line bringing them into the conversation. Harley suspected that was exactly why he had done it.

"Maybe." Tony's response was clipped, making it clear the conversation was over. "Do what you want but my gut is telling me that something isn't right."

_Yeah, because the person that's been swinging around the city in sweatpants is your son. _Harley thought sarcastically.

"I want in."

The words fell out of Harley's mouth before he could catch them. He wasn't sure what he meant to say but he couldn't take it back now. Peters shook his head vigorously. "No. Some of the people I've stopped are bad, like really bad, and if they found you if something happened to you because of me I'd never-"

"Pete," Harley cut him off. "Dad's been Iron Man for how long now? We're kind of already in that position as it is, and besides, it doesn't matter as long as your identity stays a secret right?" He cast a sideways look at his brother, teasingly reaching for the doorknob "Or I could just go talk to Dad if you're that worried about-" There was a _thwp!_ like wire slicing through the air and suddenly his hand was stuck to the door with sticky webs. Peter had one of the bracelets - web-shooters - strapped to his wrist and when he saw he had Harley's attention again he said, "Don't tell Mom and Dad."

"I won't if you let me help."

There was a long pause before Peter caved.

"Fine. But just so you know that's blackmail."

….

Peter, as Harley would come to find out, was terrible at keeping his secret identity a secret.

Not even a week after Harley found out, Ned had shown up at their house grinning ear to ear about being Spider-Man's self-proclaimed Guy in the Chair. MJ came a few days later and they had since become a sort of team Ned was calling the FOS, or Friends of Spider-Man, helping Peter get in and out of places without being caught by bad guys or worse, their dad.

And it was all going well. Until it wasn't.

Harley hadn't heard from Peter in almost half an hour. In retrospect, it seemed like a very short amount of time, but when it came to Peter, those thirty minutes of silence had him panicking. He had been fighting someone called the Green Goblin and he seemed to be winning until Harley heard something like a body hitting a wall and static before the comms went completely silent. He had tried to get them back online and when that hadn't worked, tried calling Peter's phone. He hadn't answered. Ned was already scanning through the little security footage he had access to from the computer in his apartment and MJ was driving around the last place they knew Peter had been, searching for any sign of him. There was nothing left for Harley to do except pace around his room. The waiting was killing him.

Then Peter knocked on his window.

He didn't give his brother a chance to open it before he undid the latch and dropped to the floor in a very ungraceful manner. His torso was completely covered in blood, his suit torn clean through.

"Jesus fuck Peter!" Harley dropped to his knees, peeling off his Midtown hoodie and pressing it to Peter's midsection. "What happened?"

It almost looked like Peter had fallen asleep. "Peter!" Harley shook him roughly and his eyes flew open.

"Um…. glider…. stabbed me."

His eyes started to close again, his breathing slowing to a terrifying few breaths a minute, and Harley had no idea what to do. His jacket was completely sodden and the bleeding wasn't slowing. He wasn't a doctor. He didn't know how to fix this.

"FRIDAY, call Dad. " his voice shook. "Tell him it's an emergency."

He barely noticed when his dad came pounding up the steps and shoved him out of the way so he could carry Peter down to Medbay. He barely noticed when Helen Cho took his brother into surgery and his dad whirled on him, both horrified and expectant at once. He barely noticed because his attention was focused on his hands, which were completely covered in his brother's blood. He barely noticed because at that moment he realized he didn't know if Peter was going to live or die. He barely noticed because tomorrow, he could wake up an only child.

And it would be all his fault.

…**.**

48 hours.

Harley and his dad waited in Medbay for 48 hours before Peter finally woke up. And it was the most awkward two days of Harley's entire life.

At some point, he had told Tony everything. About Spider-Man and FOS and what had happened before Peter fell through Harley's window. Every couple of seconds, his father's expression would shift between concerned, confused and furious. It always went back to furious.

"What the _hell_ were you thinking?" Tony hissed through gritted teeth.

"Dad I know that you're angry-"

Tony cut him off with the most ferocious glare he had ever seen and he fell silent. "No. First of all, this is where you zip it. Your opinion is neither wanted nor is it required." He paused and took a deep breath, slowly. "Second, angry doesn't even begin to describe what I am with you and your brother right now. You know how dangerous this is, what I and your aunts and uncles do, and I could understand wanting to be a part of it when you're older but-" he broke off, eyes shining. "Peter is sixteen. This is nowhere close to being his responsibility. You know that." The guilt that had formed in Harley's chest over the last day seemed to grow even more and he looked down at his hands, picking at the skin around his nails. Most of the blood had been washed away but Harley knew that even when it was physically gone if his brother hadn't survived if he had kept the promise he had made to Peter when he found out months before and kept his secret, it would always be there. Maybe even now when Peter was alive and breathing, albeit barely, the blood would always be there.

"I thought I was helping." He whispered, refusing to look up.

"Helping who Harley?"

The boy put his head in his hands.

"I don't know. Him? The people in Queens he was swinging around saving?" his voice pitched like it was a question. "You should have seen him when he first told me though," For the first time in two days, Harley looked his father in the eyes. "He was so happy. And I wanted to tell you but, after Ben," Tony winced. "I couldn't take that away from him you know? And if he was going to do something stupid, he might as well have had the backup."

For a moment, Tony's expression softened. Harley remembered hearing after Ben's funeral, his mother saying she thought they were going to have to bury Peter with Ben and he knew that his father was thinking the same thing he was. Yes, being a superhero was dangerous, especially for a sixteen-year-old, but how much worse would it be if they took it away? And if they lost him, would they ever be able to get him back?

….

When Peter finally opened his eyes the first thing he was aware of was the ache spreading between his belly button and his sternum. _Weird. _He thought. His healing factor fixed most of his patrol injuries at almost four times the normal rate, but the days spent healing after some of the more major ones still sucked. He had thought he would be in more pain, thought the Goblin's glider had done more damage but maybe in his disoriented state he had miscalculated.

Then he realized.

The lights he had thought were attached to his bedroom ceiling, were the lights of the Medbay. The incessant beeping to his left wasn't his alarm clock but a heart rate monitor, and the snoring on his other side wasn't his own but his dad's.

His dad, who was fast asleep in an uncomfortable-looking position in an uncomfortable-looking chair.

His dad who probably knew everything.

_Fuck I am so screwed._

Harley was sitting in the chair across from Tony, scrolling through his phone. He looked more exhausted than Peter had ever seen him. The dark circles under his eyes were heavy enough to carry groceries and his hair was a mess, the curls sticking up in odd directions like he had yanked his hands through it one too many times. He was wearing the same hoodie and jeans he had worn the day (two days?) before. How long had Peter been asleep?

He tried to call out to Harley but it felt like he had swallowed sand and all that came out was a rough squeak. The other boy's head shot up. "Hey!" he exclaimed, leaning forward to prop his elbows on the bed. "You're awake!" Peter nodded and pointed to the water bottle on the bedside table. Harley frowned. "What? What is it?" Peter shook his hand more vigorously.

"Oh!"

Harley unscrewed the cap and handed it to him, relief and worry rolling off him in waves. "Please don't ever do that to me again."

Peter swallowed. "What? Get stabbed by a maniac? Yes, sir."

"It's not even funny," his mirthless laugh broke the admonishment in half. "I thought you were dead."

Peter sighed, sipping the water again. He had sat where Harley was after countless Iron Man missions where his dad had come back injured. He had seen the blood and damaged armor and thought about the last thing he said to Tony, wondered if it would be the last thing he ever said. It wasn't a good feeling.

"I'm sorry."

They were quiet for a long moment, Peter looking back and forth between his dad and Harley. "So I'm assuming he knows."

The older boy snorted. "I didn't know what else to do. You were unconscious and bleeding all over my floor. It's not like the shitty stitches I did when you sliced your arm open on Halloween. I-"

"Yeah, we're gonna be talking about that one later."

They jumped at the sound of Tony's voice.

He was awake now, sitting upright in his chair and regarding his boys with exasperation.

"Dad," Peter scrambled to explain. "It's not-"

"No." His father cut him off. "First of all don't even try and tell me that it's not what it looks like. That's not gonna work. And second, this can't happen again."

Peter's heart sank. Tony couldn't take Spider-Man away. He didn't understand how badly Peter needed this. He needed to be out there saving people, doing something with his powers, something good. "Kid." he was cut off again mid-rant. "You didn't let me finish. I'm not taking Spider-Man away."

"You're not mad?" Peter balked.

"Oh no I'm upset, with both of you," he waved a finger between his sons accusingly. "But I understand why you do it." He leaned over on to the bed and took Peter's hand in his, tracing circles over the boy's knuckles in slow figure eights. It was something he used to do when Peter was small when one of them was upset. He felt a pang of longing, almost as painful as the actual stab wound in his stomach. So much had happened since he was young enough to need this and he missed being this close to Tony. He wished he hadn't been the reason there was a distance between them in the first place. "I'm sorry," he repeated. "I should have told you the truth."

"Yeah, you should have."

Peter could feel his father's hands shaking where their fingers were interlaced.

"And because you didn't tell me, you're grounded," Tony paused to think. "For the rest of your lives." Peter and Harley rolled their eyes in unison. "And there are going to be ground rules, like curfew, when you can go out and where. What you wear when you go out," he held up the top portion of Peter's old suit that had been discarded to the floor, now destroyed, and eyed it with disgust. "Which means no more traipsing around New York in a onesie."

He dodged the swat Peter aimed at him easily, though it was half-hearted. Peter could already feel himself falling asleep again as he moaned. "Dad, it's not a onesie."

"Whatever, this _thing_ is no more." he dropped it back to the floor with a flourish, his expression suddenly serious. "This stays between us, you understand me? That means us, your mom, and Happy. And maybe the team, I don't know we'll figure that out later but my point still stands. No one else. Ross and the Accords are a whole mess I don't want you involved with yet."

"What about Ned and MJ?"

Tony facepalmed. "Kid what's the point of having a secret identity if you can't keep it a secret?"

"That's what I said!" Harley exclaimed, hands thrown up in a gesture that said _Why does nobody listen to me?_

"Technically, I didn't tell MJ she figured it out." Peter didn't try to hide the admiration in his voice. He was too tired to care about the knowing looks his family shot him as his eyes drifted closed.

"We'll figure it out tomorrow," Tony said as he pressed a kiss to Peter's forehead. "Sleep well, Bambi. I love you."


End file.
